Can't Love You in the Dark
by twuewuv
Summary: The odd thing is, Bucky doesn't dream of gunshots. ((Light Bucky/Steve))


The odd thing is that Bucky doesn't dream of gunshots.

There's no dirt beneath his sprinting feet from the old days. There are no echoes of screams that bounce off metal walls. He doesn't hear himself begging, from when it all started, and he doesn't hear his dull flat voice repeating back orders from while it was happening. There's no bright hospital-like lights. There's no blood spattered on walls, or exploding from within himself, or drenched in his loved ones clothing.

His dreams don't consist of noise or sight or pain.

It's silence. It's darkness. It's numb.

And he wakes up in a sweat, his heart beating frantically and his throat so tight that even though his mouth is open for a scream, nothing lets loose. His hands are clenching his sheets and his eyes are already open most of the time, his sight taking its sweet time to fade into reality. He's dizzy. His body aches.

He doesn't dream of forgetting – his dreams are the feeling of having forgotten already. The blank space of a memory gone, but you don't notice that it's empty because, _what memory_?

In his dreams, he is lost. He is nothing. He's the empty mind that was so easy to control, he's the shell of a man that had nothing to fight or live for. He's silent. He's willing to kill. His entire body is numb. And yet, the absolutely worst part of it is that he _doesn't see anything wrong with it -_

Then the panic, the crazed tingling in the back of his mind that feels like a bat to his skull because _before_ that tingle, his mind was empty, lenient, and unknowing of a beautiful man until suddenly he's punching the man. The tingle comes and his entire body lurches, and he doesn't have a thought, no words come to his aggravatingly still mind, but there's this feeling, and ice water over his heated skin, a rush that- that-

And this barrels through the darkness and startles him awake, like those infuriating dreams of falling that you gasp awake from.

As he's breathing heavily on the bed, he's afraid. So afraid. That one night he'll dream of nothing and wake up as nothing again.

* * *

"Bad dreams?" Sam asks, and Bucky doesn't answer, just pushes his cereal around with his spoon. Sam doesn't say anything more but continues to move around in the kitchen.

Before Sam leaves the room he places toast on a plate by Bucky's metal elbow. After Sam leaves the threshold, Bucky pushes the cereal away from him and digs into the buttered toast.

He's been living with Sam and Steve for the past five months. It's interesting living with people who pay attention to him in such a positive way. Ever since he mentioned passively, one time, that cereal isn't his favorite breakfast food, they suddenly stocked up on basically every other option of breakfast foods.

It happens sometimes, though, that after bad enough nights, Bucky won't have the energy for something more simple than cereal, and won't really be thinking about what he's grabbing. He ends up not eating any of it, just staring at his bowl in resigned distaste. And of course his superhero roommates notice.

After clearing the plate he takes both dishes to the sink. He dumps the cereal and begins to wash. He feels much more awake. Alive. The darkness is something that clings to his skin like a worry that won't ease your chest, but getting something in his stomach, and remembering that his blood is pumping to his heart the same as someone else in his vicinity...it's a good reminder.

He's here. He's aware. He _can_ choose between cereal and toast, and he can get soapy water between his metal joints and be briefly irritated about the drying process instead of not noticing and moving on with the mission.

This is something he has to remind himself of practically constantly, but he's okay with that. The alternative in being unable to remind himself, sinking into a depression that leads to secluding himself and loneliness and emptiness -

He walks to the living room and finds Steve watching the news, his brows furrowed in what seems like confusion and building anger. Bucky doesn't even look at what's on the television, just goes right up to it and shuts it off.

"Hey! Bucky, come on." Steve's voice is gruff like it gets when he feels like yelling. Bucky ignores his protest and turns on the radio instead, classic rock filling the room. He grabs one of Steve's sketchbooks from the table and throws it at Steve's chest. Steve catches it quickly and holds it safely on his lap.

"I want to watch you draw the sky line." He waves over to the view out the window, buildings practically touching the clouds and the morning sun making all the shiny windows sparkle.

Steve's brow stays furrowed but less anger is there, and Bucky feels a different sort of tingle start in his sternum and spread through his chest. The feeling reminds him of smiling, but his mouth muscles won't respond.

He sits next to Steve instead of focusing on that, and stares resolutely at the blank page of the sketchbook until Steve sighs and reaches toward the table to get his pencil.

After twenty minutes into the sketching, seconds silently ticking by in the back of Bucky's mind, he says, "It's not good to start the day angry."

Steve looks over to Bucky for only a moment before getting right back to the sketch. The outline of the buildings are finished, the details not yet filled in, but Steve is focusing now on the few clouds above the buildings before the wind pushes them too far away.

Steve nudges his shoulder against Bucky's left one, and Bucky's heart skips. He doesn't think he'll ever get over that. Light touches, the warmth that tingles in loops around the areas they touch and spreading right to his heart, whispering _safety_ to his brain. He pushed against the nudge and closer to Steve, keeping his eyes on the sketch, and not moving back again.

"You should draw me over the buildings. Or sitting on one of them. Drinking a scotch, and in a really clean-cut suit or something."

Steve huffs a laugh and the last of his furrowed brows smooth out, and Bucky finally completely relaxes against Steve.

Steve doesn't draw Bucky on any of the buildings, but after he shades the drawing, he hands it over to Bucky and lets Bucky draw a small stick figure standing on the tallest building, arms in the air and a smile half out of the circled head as the eye brows are pulled down evilly. " _All mine!_ " the stick figure is saying, a shaky speech bubble beside his head, because Steve is shaking beside him with incredulous laughter and their shoulders are still touching.

Bucky tells Steve a dramatic rendition of the stick figures hopes and dreams, how he came to rule only this one specific building, and throws out ridiculous name combinations for Steve's approval until Steve is laughing outright. They start wrestling over the sketch book because Steve won't let him write "Doofus Mc ButtSucker Rules" at the top.

Bucky doesn't feel like darkness in the face of Steve's blinding smile, and he lets himself cherish the moment until the safe spirals loop across his entire body and his mouth is twitching in delight.

He knows what's coming tonight in his dreams – but right now he's alive and he's not the only one who is. It helps chase away the numbness.

It helps.


End file.
